Art & Creativity Quote by Ron Wood

Ron Wood’s line lands like a shrug that hides a small victory lap. “It’s taken folk a while to come around” isn’t just patience; it’s a quiet indictment of how rock culture polices its own. The assumption is that a guitarist’s credibility lives and dies on the fretboard, and any “whole art thing” reads as distraction, dilettantism, or worse: vanity. Wood frames that suspicion as almost quaint - “folk,” “the boys in the band” - but the subtext is about permission and hierarchy inside a mythic machine like the Rolling Stones, where identity is tightly branded and everyone has a job.

What makes the quote work is the interpersonal specificity. He doesn’t say critics or audiences doubted him first; he names his closest professional peers. That’s the sharper wound: the people who benefit most from your singular talent are often the last to tolerate your multiplicity. “They just wanted me to concentrate on the music” captures a classic creative bargain: we’ll celebrate you, but only in the lane we built for you.

Then comes the turn: “But they respect it now.” Respect, not approval. Respect implies earned legitimacy, the kind that arrives only after persistence, evidence, and maybe a few successful exhibitions. It’s also Wood staking a claim to a fuller self, pushing back against the idea that rock authenticity requires monogamy. In an era that treats artists as content pipelines, the quote argues - gently, stubbornly - that creative life is allowed to sprawl.